


Hermione Granger: Tomb Raider

by Artistia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Also Indiana Jones AU now that I've started thinking about it, Because Fleur is a useless lesbian, Because romance is secondary in this, But a lot of real history too, But it's there, F/F, History, I'm not going to classify this as slow-burn, More like slow-realization, Pre-Fleurmione really, Some made up History, They both are in their own way, Tomb Raider AU, fleurmione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28159545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artistia/pseuds/Artistia
Summary: Chaos has erupted in the Veela clans with the death of the queen, and corruption in the High Council would threaten the selection of a new queen, possibly sending the clans into civil war once more. Only the rediscovery of a lost ancient Veela relic can prevent a hostile regime from seizing power, and Fleur Delacour is determined to find it, with the assistance of renowned historian and archaeologist, the nicknamed Tomb Raider Hermione Granger.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger
Comments: 40
Kudos: 210





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story would not leave me alone, and I was like I AM BUSY! I have other WIP stories that need my attention, but this one was bothering me. But, well, I'll get back to them. This story has proven a good break from lots of angst in some of my other ones right now. Posting the prologue right now to see how it does, next chapter will come as soon as I get another chapter in one of my WIP done. 
> 
> As a note, this story is set in contemporary times, I didn't feel like thinking back to figure out stuff from the late 90s or early 2000s, so it was easier for me to set it in... well, today (though without the, ya know, pandemic and all that). 
> 
> I'll post the family tree I'm using for Fleur in the bottom note.

**Hermione Granger: Tomb Raider**

**The Search for Aurelia's Dagger**

**Prologue**

Footsteps echoed through the hallway as heeled shoes struck the marble floor beneath them, a constant rhythmic pounding as the figure rushed towards the doors at the end of the hall. “It’s true,” the woman announced, throwing open the doors and startling the occupants of the room. “The Queen is dead.”

Gasps rang out, but another voice sounded out above them. “Are you certain Jeanne?” Esmé, the eldest in the room, questioned. 

“Yes Maman,” Jeanne replied. “I spoke with Jack, they’re going to be announcing it soon.”

“And?” The woman continued. “Did she name a successor?”

Jeanne shook her head, “No, the sickness came on too suddenly. The Queen was bedridden before anyone could do anything, and she never woke again, not even when the fever came. That is what finally took her, just hours ago.”

"Are we sure it was just a sickness that took her?" Estelle asked. At the silence to her question, the woman looked around the room, "Don't tell me none of you weren't thinking the same thing."

"Jack is concerned about that as well," Jeanne replied. "The sickness came too quickly and without warning. Normal illnesses wouldn't have that much of an effect on a Veela, but she told me this was not only sudden but efficient. It left her completely without her senses before she slipped into unconsciousness so she wouldn’t have been able to name a successor in that time even if she wanted to."

“As an investigator for the crown, it’ll be her job to look into this while our people mourn.” Esmé fell back in her seat, her head in her hands. “But for the first time in centuries, the Veela have no queen.”

“What does this mean Maman?” 

Esmé turned her attention to where her eldest, Apolline, sat with her wife Sophie on the right side of the long table they were all gathered around. She looked around at all of her family as she tried to think about what to tell them, about what to expect in the coming months. Jeanne, her third and youngest daughter, sat on the left side of the table next to her second child Estelle and her wife Natalie. Jack would normally be present at such family gatherings since she and Jeanne started dating and found out they were mates, but she would be busy for the next fortnight, and it would be better if she were ignorant of the conversation about to take place anyway. Plausible deniability only went so far with split loyalties. 

The rest of the table was filled with her sisters and their children. When rumors of the queen’s illness reached her ears, Esmé immediately called the immediate members of the Delacour clan together to discuss the possible ramifications of what could occur should the queen die. It was a morbid coincidence that her youngest received the news of the queen’s passing on her way to the meeting. She turned her eyes to where her eldest grandchildren, Victoire and Fleur, Apolline’s two oldest children, were keeping her the younger, non-school age children occupied. She worried for them, for their futures, for the futures of all Veela going through this period.

She felt a hand on her arm, and turned to look at her mate, her wife, the love of her life. Catherine smiled and entwined their fingers together. “It’s alright,” she murmured. “Just tell them.”

Esmé faced her family and took a deep breath. “This is not the first time in Veela history that the queen has died without an heir or successor. It has been many centuries since such a thing happened, the last time was when the queen was struck down in battle. Precedent is clear, when the queen dies and the line of succession is disrupted, the council convenes and must choose a new queen by the next new moon.”

“That is only a fortnight away,” Sophie said. “How do they choose the next queen?”

“Members put forth different names from the clans,” Esmé answered. “They deliberate on the selections before voting. “They deliberate between the choices, narrow it down and then they vote.”

“Surely the council will consider one of us,” Estelle stated, voicing the murmurings around the table. “The Delacour clan is one of the largest in the world.”

“But not the largest, nor the most powerful or in this case, well connected.” The matriarch took a deep breath before continuing. “We are a great clan, there is no denying that, but we are also one of the clans that has the most connection to the human world. Many of us are mated to humans, work with humans, send our children to school with humans. This would put us at a disadvantage to the more traditionalists on the council.”

Esmé’s younger sister Eloise snorted. “Imbeciles, all of them,” she muttered. She turned towards her nieces and their mates, “I know you might not have much dealings with the council, except maybe your mate Jeanne, but they have been changing in the last few decades, becoming more distrustful and suspicious. WWII and the war with Grindlewald brought up many of the old grievances and those traditionalists were able to catch the ear of many clans who had been on the fence for a long time. That idiotic blood war in England has only made things worse.”

“They can’t still hold such prejudices can they?” Esmé turned as her daughter-in-law Sophie spoke. Like her, Apolline had found her mate in a human witch, and while the introduction of human blood did nothing to dilute the Veela blood or lineage in children produced from the match, many older Veela still carried prejudices towards any who mated with humans.

“The queen was making strides to try to stamp out those prejudices, but it seems not even she was safe from the machinations of those who whisper from the shadows.” The matriarch rubbed at her head, “This could potentially throw the Veela back into a civil war, the likes of which not seen for centuries.”

Jeanne leaned forward at the table, trying to comfort her mother around her sister and sister-in-law sitting next to her. “Not necessarily Maman, what other clans might be considered by the council? Maybe they’re also forward thinking as well?”

"Don't count on it," Margarite, Eloise's daughter replied. "The Jardins are the largest clan but they are not political at all. I am friends with one of the younger family members, and they prefer to stay out of the fray, they do not even have anyone from their clan on the council."

"Jack said something the other week but I didn't think about it," Jeanne said quietly. "She said that a few members of the council were meeting with Daphne Lavigne and Isolde DuBois."

"My aunt?" Natalie blinked and leaned forward. “My great aunt Isolde? What was my aunt doing around Daphne Lavigne? Last I checked our clans were still feuding.”

“Perhaps she has managed to convince your grandmother to ‘mend fences’ with the Lavignes in hopes to grow your clan’s prominence,” Jeanne suggested. When the other people at the table turned towards the woman, she just shrugged, “What? We all know that Isolde DuBois is a grasping woman, you said so yourself Natalie. She is dissatisfied with the size and stature of the DuBois clan, and has been working to increase it over the years. And as for the Lavignes, they have the ear of many in the council despite being small-minded bigots.”

“I have to go talk to my grandmother,” Natalie said, pushing back from the table and hurrying out of the room. Estelle rose and followed after her mate, making apologies on her way out.

“Maman,” Apolline started once the room had settled back down. “What are we going to do if the council selects someone from the Lavigne clan to be queen? Jeanne is right, they are highly connected, the head of the council is from the Lavigne clan, she is the matriarch’s sister. It would be nothing to sway over the rest of the council. If a Lavigne gains the throne, they will demand that all of the clans be cut off from humans.” Apolline clutched at her wife’s hand tightly and glanced over at her human mother. “That would cause chaos in the clans and would no doubt lead to a civil war.”

“There must be something we can do Esmé.” Sophie was always the optimistic one, the perfect balance to her realist daughter, Esmé didn’t want to tell her that there was nothing they could do, she couldn’t take that hope away from her.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I really don’t know.”

* * *

Esmé retreated to her office once the family had dispersed back to their own homes, her mind troubled with thoughts of the future of the Veela clans. She worried for her grandchildren, their potential mates, and their children. Veela had been isolated from humans before, and it resulted in the slow decay of their species. Veela who didn't find their mates in other Veela were forced to marry for political reasons rather than love, resulting in fewer and weaker children. It was not a future Esmé wanted for her family.

“Is there really nothing we can do Grandmère?” Esmé turned when she heard her second eldest grandchild speak. She saw Fleur standing in the doorway of her office, a concerned look on her face.

“About what dear?” It was foolish to pretend she didn’t know what the girl was talking about and she knew it as soon as the question left her mouth; she didn’t want the younger generation worrying about something the older generation should have taken care of long ago. 

Fleur narrowed her eyes at the older woman and crossed her arms. “I’m not an imbecile Grandmère, Victoire and I heard you all talking earlier about the death of the queen and what this means for the Veela.”

“Eavesdropping were we?”

“I’m twenty-three years old Grandmère, Victoire is twenty-five, we’re not children.”

Esmé rolled her eyes, “To have grandchildren so old at my age.”

“You’re not even seventy dear stop complaining,” Catherine commented, walking into the room.

“Grandmaman,” Fleur greeted, kissing the older woman on the cheek and giving her a slight hug. When she pulled back, she studied the two women in front of her. Her Grandmère and Grandmaman always seemed like giants during her childhood, safe havens when she fought with her sister or her mothers were angry with her. They were larger than life, unstoppable, but looking at them now, she could see the effects of years and stress catching up with them. Her grandmaman’s brunette hair lightened considerably and was streaked with silver strands. Grandmère’s hair had always been the traditional silver color of the Delacour Veela, but her face held wrinkles not present years ago and her hands shook slightly as she reached out to her wife.

“It seems that someone was listening to our conversation earlier,” Esmé explained when her wife pulled away from their granddaughter.

“Fleur Sophia Delacour!” Catherine scolded. “You know that it is impolite to eavesdrop on conversations.”

“We were in the same room Grandmaman, it was not like you were in a different part of the house.” The younger woman rolled her eyes. “But my earlier statement still stands, there must be something we can do. The Lavigne family…” Fleur and her older sister were in school with Colette Lavigne, the current matriarch’s granddaughter. The girl was a year ahead of Victoire, three years ahead of Fleur, and made their lives miserable whenever the professors weren’t looking. From what she understood, the other members of the Lavigne family were just as bad, just older, more bigoted bullies. “If one of them becomes queen, they will demand we cut ties with the human world, with all humans and many of the clans will not be willing to do so.”

“I don’t know, I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of something,” Esmé sighed.

Catherine bit her lip and her brow arched, a thoughtful look crossing her face. “There might be a way…” she said slowly, drawing the two Veelas’ attention. 

“You’ve found something?” Esmé gasped, looking over to the papers her wife had left on one of the chairs when she walked into the room.

“Maybe,” she replied, picking up the folder. “You know that I’ve always been interested in history.”

“It’s how we met,” the older woman answered, softly seizing one of her hands to lay a kiss on the back. “I saw you poking around the Roman ruins near my home and I thought you were beautiful, I was so glad after we started seeing more of each other that I realized you were my mate.”

“The brief jaunt through the past was nice darling, but distracting.” Catherine wiggled her hand free and continued leafing through the papers in her file. Her wife smiled, used to the behavior of her wife, once a historian, always a historian. “So for years I have been interested in the history of the Veela, legends, myths, culture, traditions, everything I could find. I was especially interested in the early history of the Veela, particularly the legend of Queen Aurelia.”

“You’re not thinking about the Dagger of Aurelia are you?” Esmé interrupted, “That’s nothing but a myth.”

Catherine narrowed her eyes at her wife and set her hand on her hip. “In every myth and legend, there is a bit of truth, and I think this one is true.”

“What is the Dagger of Aurelia?” Fleur asked, staring at both of her grandmothers in confusion.

The brunette set the folder down and walked over to the bookshelves in the study, and pulled an old, dusty tome off one of the shelves. “Here we go, the Dagger of Aurelia.” She pointed to one of the pages in the book, and Fleur studied the drawing of the jagged, slightly curved dagger and jeweled handle. “Aurelia was the first queen of the Veela,” Catherine continued. “Legend has it that the clans were at war with each other during a great civil war that almost led the Veela to extinction. But Aurelia emerged and used her dagger to rain fire from the sky and cause the earth to shift and rumble under the feet of the clashing armies.” She flipped a few more pages and revealed another drawing, “She sent everyone in the field that day to their knees and demanded peace among the Veela, so the fighting stopped and the clans started to actually communicate with each other. As they continued to talk, Aurelia used the dagger again to bring prosperity to the land of the Veela. Richness of the earth, purity of the water, harmony among the animals, it was a period of great beauty for the Veela. As thanks for bringing peace and prosperity, the Veela made her their queen.”

“This dagger, was it magical or was Aurelia using it to channel her magic like a wand or a staff?” Fleur asked, studying the tale in front of her.

“It is believed that the dagger had magical properties beyond any foci wielded by magical users,” Esmé interjected. “Though it was probably just a dagger and Aurelia was an extremely gifted Veela.”

“Whether it was magical or not is beside the point,” Catherine persisted. “What is important is that according to ancient Veela law, whoever wields the dagger and can use it will be queen of the Veela.”

“What?” Fleur’s head snapped up to look at her Grandmaman. “Is that true?”

Her silver-haired grandmother sighed and picked up another book off the shelf. “It is,” she conceded. “It is an old law, from the time of the second great war of the Veela hundreds of years ago when the last queen died without an heir. They believed in legends such as the dagger of Aurelia, and many searched for it, but none found it, so a queen was chosen, and life continued.”

“What happened to the dagger after Aurelia died?”

“Legend has it…” Catherine glared at her wife to be silent before she opened her mouth again with her negative nonsense. “Legend has it that none could use it after Aurelia died so it was sealed away in her tomb with protections in place should anyone attempt to take it.”

“But the tomb cannot be found,” Esmé insisted. “Many have searched for it, many have died, and they found nothing.”

Catherine just hummed, “It might have helped if they had had a map.” She pulled out an old, weathered looking piece of parchment and carefully set it on the desk in the room.

The two Veela gasped when it was revealed, and gathered around the desk to study the fragile material. “You found a map,” the silver haired Veela woman murmured. “Where?”

“I found this years ago when I was poking around in the ruins of the Delacour clan ancestral home,” Catherine explained. “I didn’t really know what it was when I found it since much of it is in code and I had not yet read about Aurelia. When we were discussing the ramifications of the queen’s death earlier, I remembered about the clause in the Veela law, and then I remembered about this map.”

“Have you been able to decipher any of it Grandmaman?” Fleur asked, looking at the strange symbols.

The older woman sighed at the question, “Unfortunately not, while I am good at history, codebreaking is not my speciality, and this is in some type of code. The parts written in latin here and here indicate that this is a map to the tomb of Aurelia’s tomb.”

“And this part,” Esmé murmured, “ _Supplicium et mors furibus,_ torture and death to thieves, a clear warning to all who go looking for it.”

Fleur was silent, studying the map for a few minutes, before silently rolling it back up. “I will go looking for the tomb,” she announced. “I will find the dagger.”

“Fleur!”

“No Grandmère, Grandmaman, I have to do this. We need to get that dagger, and we don’t have much time. We can’t let the machinations of the Lavignes destroy everything the Veela have worked to achieve, we cannot risk another civil war destroying what we have built up since the last one!”

“But you don’t need to endanger your life in order to do it,” Esmé protested. “You saw the map, torture and death to thieves, to all who search for the tomb.”

“Grandmère, I’m a trained Hit Witch for the French government, I have been dealing with dark wizards and deadly curses for years.

“Do you know how to break the code and find the tomb?” Catherine asked before Fleur could walk out of the study.

The Veela stopped and turned back to look at her grandmothers, a thoughtful look on her face. “No,” she said slowly. “But I think I know someone who can.”

  
  



	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed a few things about the battle for Hogwarts and how that went down with who died and such. It's not super important for the story, just figured I would mention it since that's explained here in this chapter.
> 
> Also, while I'm basing this off of Tomb Raider, really I'm basing it on the Tomb Raider/Wonder Woman crossover by the amazing Gail Simone and Stjepan Sejic. The comic pages are available out there on the web from Twitter, so definitely go enjoy those. I will use some of the scenes to base future stories on if I continue with this idea.

**Chapter 1**

It was a wonder she wasn't dead yet, Hermione thought to herself as she dodged another swipe of talons. She heard beating wings above her, and ducked down behind a broken column as the enraged griffin let out a furious screech.

"Well done Granger." Hermione turned and spotted Draco Malfoy glaring at her from behind a large piece of rubble. "You had to miss the information where the griffin was real and very very angry!"

"I wasn't the one who took the crown off before I finished translating the information around the altar now was I?" The brunette retorted. "And that's Granger-Black to you Malfoy."

"Okay maybe less snarking and more trying to figure out how to get rid of that griffin," Bill Weasley snuck behind the broken pillar with Hermione as the griffin let out another bolt of lightning. "How do we get out of here?"

Hermione bit her lip as she thought, her mind working out the information on the altar that she was able to see before shit hit the fan. "Well," she drawled out. "The griffin statue came to life when Malfoy took off the crown, we might be able to reverse the process if the crown is replaced on the griffin's brow."

"Gringotts hired us to retrieve the entire hoard," Malfoy protested, letting out a yelp as electricity sizzled through the air.

"The goblins charged us to retrieve the goblin made artifacts," Hermione countered. "And that is what we're going to do. That crown is ancient, but not goblin made, it's going back on the statue."

Draco looked like he was about to protest but another bolt of lightning flew over his head and collided with the wall of the chamber in front of him, sending bits of rock and debris raining down around him. “Alright,” he squeaked out, tossing the jeweled, golden crown over to the brunette. “What’s the plan?”

“You two distract it, lead it back towards the altar, and I’ll work on getting the crown back on its head.”

The blond grumbled but the red haired man just dragged him from his hiding spot and ordered him to start directing spells to distract the beast. Her eyes tracked around the room trying to figure out a way to do the impossible, and she re-analyzed how they had gotten into this mess. She had been hired by Gringotts to locate the treasury of the gryphon king, an ancient that commanded an army of griffins and could even shapeshift into one of the magnificent beasts. Griffins were known to be hoarders of treasure, and the goblins were sure that some of the objects in the legendary treasury were of goblin origin. They sent Bill Weasley with her as a Gringotts employee and cursebreaker to monitor their investment, and Draco Malfoy was hired on assignment from the Auror office for protection.

Hermione knew as soon as she heard Draco Malfoy was coming along on the expedition that something would go wrong, and of course the idiot had to pluck the tempting golden crown off the head of the griffin statue. That was the exact reason why she didn’t work with other people when she was out on one of her adventures. She slowly made her way around the circular chamber, over piles of artifacts and treasures towards the altar in the back of the room where the griffin originally stood, gleaming crown on it's brow. She could have cursed Malfoy for taking that crown off. She thought he learned his lesson after the Remembrall incident in First year and the hippogriff in Third year but no. Shiny things are always a trap, and Malfoy with his grabby toddler hands couldn't help himself.

She finally reached the altar and saw that Bill and Draco were baiting the griffin back to the altar using bursts of color and evasive maneuvers. Apparently enchanted and formally stone griffins were resistant to magic so they couldn't use magic on it, but they could use magic to mislead it. Hermione watched as the two continued to usher it towards the altar, and cast a jumping hex on her shoes when it got close enough. Just as she launched herself in the air towards the beast, Draco called out in surprise which caused the griffin to spot her. She hissed out in pain as she felt claws dig into her back, but she managed to hold onto the back of the creature, wrapping her arms around its neck. 

“Stop messing around and put the crown on its head Granger!” Malfoy yelled out and Hermione grit her teeth in annoyance.

She shifted as much as she could with the griffin flying her all over the vault, and set the crown on its head. Just as she placed it on the beast’s brow, sharp claws dug into her back again and she lost her grip, sending her falling towards the ground. The last thought she had before losing consciousness from pain was how much she was going to enjoy wringing Malfoy’s neck.

* * *

Hermione woke up when she felt a wave of magic rush over her that she immediately catalogued as a diagnostic charm. Her eyes blinked open and she groaned as she met the distinctive lighting charm used by St. Mungo’s. “Welcome back to the land of the living Lady Granger-Black,” the healer greeted and Hermione turned her bleary gaze on the man.

“How’d I get here?” She slurred out, her mouth still slightly numb from the stasis charm they no doubt placed on her. The charm always left her feeling like she had been chewing on a pillow with a persistent tingling sensation running through her entire body. 

“Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley brought you in after activating one of your emergency portkeys,” the healer explained. “The two gentlemen left to contact their employers while we took care of you and contacted your emergency contact.”

The brunette glanced over to the corner and saw Andromeda Tonks sitting in the corner, her legs crossed and reading a file folder in her hand. Hermione let her head thunk back down on the pillow beneath her. “Great,” she muttered, and the healer left her to deal with the occasionally volatile member of the Black family. 

“What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into this time Hermione?” Andy commented, setting the folder down.

“Did you get the information for the-” The older woman pushed Hermione back down into the bed before she could finish her sentence, and sat down in the chair next to her.

“You need to take it easy for a bit, your back was nearly torn to shreds.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, “Yeah, and I don’t want all the trouble I went through to find that vault to go to waste, so what happened?”

Andy sighed and rolled her eyes, “The healer told you how you got here, and St. Mungo’s contacted me. As soon as I heard that Malfoy and Weasley had already gone back to Gringotts, I contacted them and sent Nymphadora to oversee the cataloguing of the artifacts. Per your arrangement with the goblins in this particular find, they stake claim to any goblin made artifacts and a small percentage of the hoard.”

“Make sure they don’t touch the crown on the griffin statue,” the brunette muttered. “Stupid Malfoy.”

“I’ll make a note of that and let Nymphadora know, did you manage to get a good look at the artifacts before tangling with a griffin?” The woman continued, “How many goblin made artifacts were in the treasury?”

Hermione smirked as she settled back down in the bed, “Not many, I’ll be getting a lot of artifacts to research out of this, which is good for as much trouble as I went through to find them.” She tilted her head up again and narrowed her eyes at Andromeda. “I am definitely not working with Draco Malfoy again though, make sure Gringotts and the Auror office know that, pure incompetence.”

“I’ll let them know,” the dark-haired woman responded. “And I’ll go ahead and see about getting you out of here since you seem to be feeling better.” Andromeda walked out the door, leaving Hermione to her thoughts. 

The brunette settled back down in the bed and sighed; she wondered if they had cast a charm on the beds to make them even more uncomfortable every time she was in the ward.

It had been a few years since the war ended and her life had changed so much during that time period. After her parents died during her fifth year at Hogwarts, Sirius offered to blood adopt her into the Black family. The act offered her protection in the magical world but it also secured an heir for the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Black that was not a crazed death eater or the son of a bootlicker. When he died, she became Lady of House Black, and it opened up doors for her once the war was over.

She, Harry, and Ron received many offers after the war, and the boys jumped at the chance to become Aurors. They urged her to accept the offer as well so they could continue as they were in Hogwarts and during the war, but Hermione was tired of chasing after dark wizards. She wanted a bit of normalcy after the chaos of the war, but she also wanted a challenge. While she was finishing her last year of coursework, she started dabbling in curse breaking and dueling under Flitwick and McGonagall’s supervision. As a result, she took a job at Gringotts as part of their curse breaking team. The job was diverse and interesting, she got to travel to places in Europe and parts of Africa, but it was not interesting enough to hold her attention for long. 

The work was good, the pay was reasonable, and the places were intriguing, but she didn’t like answering to the strict protocol of the goblins. She loved curse breaking, methodically taking down ward after ward, solving puzzles, but she needed more, she wanted more.

“The healers said you could leave as long as I promised to make you take it easy,” Andromeda announced when she strode back into the room. “That means I’m going to cast a sticking curse on you the second I get you home and back in your bed.” The woman dropped a fresh bundle of clothes on her bed, thankfully muggle, and motioned to her wand holster lying on the bedside table. “Go on and make yourself presentable, took these from Nymphadora’s closet.”

“I always knew that Tonks was a Queen fan,” Hermione murmured when she caught sight of the graphic tee. “Though Nirvana might also be her style.” She clambored out of bed and tugged off the uncomfortable paper gown they always gave her when she was in the hospital, and started pulling the pair of ripped jeans up her legs. 

Andy whistled as she got a good look at her back, “That griffin really did a number on you didn’t it? I don’t think those scars are going to be going away any time soon.”

“Just add them to my current collection then,” the younger woman muttered, thinking about the glammored scar on her arm. She pulled the band t-shirt over her head and wrapped the wand holster around her arm in its customary place and activated the camouflage charms on it. She glanced around looking for her boots but her eyes landed on a worn pair of trainers instead. “They took my boots too?” Hermione grumbled. This was the third pair of boots she had lost in six months.

“I’ve told you to invest in a good pair of dragon-hide boots,” Andy mentioned. “Or basilisk skin, you have enough money with the Black family assets and what you’ve earned as a treasure hunter to be able to pay for a full suit of dragon-hide without any trouble.”

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times Andy, I don’t like the term ‘treasure hunter.’”

“What would you call it then? Tomb raiding?”

Hermione scoffed, “I am simply an adventurer, an explorer seeking to discover the mysteries of the past.”

“Come along Granger-Black,” Andy continued, ignoring the younger woman’s statement. “You’re in no condition to apparate yourself, so I’ll take you to Black Manor.”

“I can just take the floo Andy,” Hermione complained.

The older woman just shushed her and bustled her out of the building before taking her arm and twisting away. They appeared in front of the ancient manor only seconds later, Hermione stumbling away once Andromeda dropped her arm. “You could warn a girl next time you do that,” she grumbled, walking up the pathway towards the imposing house. 

Black manor was the ancestral home of the Black family, and one of the houses Hermione inherited from Sirius. Grimmauld Place in London was the only house he did not leave her because he opted to leave it to Harry, and Hermione was only too willing to never see that place again. She felt the wards wash over her when she reached the gate, and quickly made her way up towards the house. A couple of the elves she employed after the end of the war were happily popping around the garden tending to the plants she gave them leave to purchase and style however they wanted. So far she ended up with a flower bed entirely of bulb flowers like daffodils and tulips, and another bed with hedges trimmed to look like Mario characters… she should have never introduced that particular elf to muggle culture. 

“Looks like some of the work you’re doing to fix up the place is going well,” Andy commented. “The lack of cursed gargoyles everywhere is a nice touch.”

“Was sick and tired of those things coming to life on the full moon and attacking everyone,” the brunette grumbled. “Dippy and Droopy managed to get rid of them, thank Merlin.”

“I swear my ancestors were super dramatic about everything,” Andy rolled her eyes. “I think there was also a cursed turret somewhere?”

“Yes, stupid thing, it was cursed to always make it seem like it was storming on that side of the manor, completely pointless.”

“Unless you’re going for ambiance.”

“Did you have vampire ancestors? That seems like something vampires would do.” Hermione has had enough run-ins with vampires to know how dramatic they were at all times, it didn’t seem completely out of range of what she had been finding at Black Manor.

Andy scoffed and looked at the younger woman, “And risk ruining centuries of pure blood in the Black lineage? Toujours Pur. What did the portraits say when they realized that you were the new head of House Black?”

“You mean when they realized that I was the adoptive mudblood daughter of a blood traitor?” Hermione clarified. “They weren’t happy, though it was only the recent generations that seemed to be vocally vicious.”

“That makes sense, the House of Black has always been about power,” Andromeda mused. “It would seem that my ancestors understand that you are a very powerful and formidable witch, great power negates any negative feelings they would have about your blood.”

“I don’t know whether to admire them for the pragmatism or shake my head at their arrogance.” 

The front doors opened once the two women reached the veranda, and a small house elf in a crisp uniform greeted them at the door. “Welcome home Lady Granger-Black, welcome Madame Tonks.”

“Dainty,” Andy greeted, nodding to the elf. “Your Mistress got herself into a little trouble and is meant to be resting.”

The elf’s eyes narrowed and she pointed a waggly-finger at the brunette, “Dainty tolds you to be watching out for that Bad Faith boy, he is no help he is on these sorts of trouble things yous be doings.”

“Yes, yes, I know Dainty, I know,” Hermione grumbled to her elf. She wondered if whoever named the elf had a sense of humor because her personal elf and the head elf of House Black was decidedly not dainty. The plucky elf had a no-nonsense attitude and quickly set her straight when she attempted to free the elves bound to the House of Black, and whipped her into shape to be a proper Head of House Black, mostly proper anyway. “Will you ask Cookie to make some tea and send it to my study please?”

Dainty snorted, “Tea and proper meal yous be getting, looking a bit too sticky, and yous will be eating it or Cookie will be shaking her spoon at yous.”

“Alright, alright, Merlin forbid I argue with an elf.” Hermione rolled her eyes and started up the large grand staircase in the foyer two at a time towards her study.

“The healer said you need to relax!” Andy called after her. 

“I am going to relax,” Hermione replied. “I’m going to be working on one of my projects while relaxing. Are you staying for tea?”

“I’ve got to head home, but I will be sending Nymphadora by later to check on you.”

“Fine fine, tell her to bring a list of the artifacts she’s catalogued so far from the vault.” Hermione continued down the hall towards her study, leaving her friend to see herself out. When she took up residence in Black manor and she oriented herself with the ancient house, she set the house elves to clearing out the questionable areas. One of the first places they worked on was the library, a huge, two story room stuffed floor to ceiling and wall to wall with books, scrolls, and ancient tomes, many of which were long out of print. Hermione was amazed by the amount of knowledge that the Black family had acquired and hoarded over the years, and furious that so much knowledge had been locked up for  _ centuries.  _ She nearly had a meltdown when she came across an entire section of books dedicated to soul magic, including horcruxes. The books would have been incredibly helpful during the war, but they got through without them, with a lot more effort than necessary though. 

After she and the elves cleared out most of the cursed books, Hermione created a little study in a section of the library. A cozy chair and a sturdy desk littered with books were all that she needed for a study, and she would rather be surrounded by books than in a stuffy room with a bunch of chatty portraits. She settled back in her large, overstuffed armchair with a sigh, her body still aching from her encounter with the griffin. She was exhausted, but her mind was still whirling with everything that she found in the vault before that idiot Malfoy awoke the griffin statue. The treasures didn’t sway her interest as much as the intellectual and historical value they held, the secrets of the past they could reveal once she got to study them.

She didn’t know how much time had passed as she relaxed in her chair, but she was startled out of her meditative state by a loud bang on her desk. Hermione nearly jumped out of her chair and glared at the pink haired woman sporting a shit-eating grin across from her. “Must you be so annoying Nymphadora Tonks?”

“Wotcher ‘Mione, of course, you’re the one who sent me on that ridiculous job, cataloguing that entire vault with the goblins there breathing down my neck.” 

“Is that any way to talk to the person who saved your life?”

“Is there a correct way?” Tonks retorted, collapsing in the chair across from Hermione’s desk. Her limbs splayed out as she slumped and a groan left her mouth, “I could feel the rage flowing off of the goblins by the way, I guess they didn’t find as many goblin made artifacts as they thought.”

“I’m probably not going to get a contract with Gringotts for a while,” Hermione mused. “Which is fine, I grow bored working with them anyway. They’re such linear thinkers, no room for any gambles or abstract notions. I’m just glad they took a slight risk looking for this particular vault, even if it didn’t pay off for them.”

“They are goblins ‘Mione,” Tonks replied. “They’re only interested in making money and retrieving goblin made artifacts. They don’t take risks unless a big return can be guaranteed for them, and with the deal you made with them, they lost on this venture.”

“In the long run it’s not a problem, I have plenty of capital to fund my own explorations, but Gringotts has resources that make it easier to locate some of the places I’ve researched.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way around the limitations without too much difficulty.” The pink haired woman pushed herself out of her chair and stretched, cracking her spine with every move. “I’ve got to go, I need to get to Hogwarts, Remus is still recovering from the full moon and I need to cover his classes.” Tonks snapped her fingers and a file folder appeared in her hand. “Here is the list of items from the vault, I’ve marked the ones that the goblins claimed, the rest will be delivered to your vault in the bank.”

“I’m sure the goblins just  _ love  _ that,” Hermione snorted. “Thanks Tonks, make sure to say hello to Remus for me and give Teddy a squeeze.”

“That child is growing like a weed, he won’t stop eating and of course he won’t stop insisting on going adventures like his ‘Aunt Mione’.” She rolled her eyes, “I blame you of course.”

“Maybe you should blame Ron and Harry as well for filling his head with tales of their deeds as Aurors and fighting dark wizards during the war, something you did a lot of if I remember correctly.”

“Yes and if it wasn’t for you, that confrontation with dear Aunt Bella would have been my last encounter with a dark wizard.” Tonks shook her head, “Now though, now I work for you on occasion as a consultant and teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. I figured I would be an Auror forever, but after everything, I find I don’t have much taste for it.”

“Well everyone thought I would go to work for the ministry or be a nice librarian somewhere and look what happened.”

Tonks smirked, “Yeah, you're a librarian for your own private library, all you need are some spectacles on a beaded chain.”

Before Hermione could retort, Dainty appeared with a soft pop and a glower on her face. “Missy Hermy!” She started, her finger wagging. “Yous has not eating the food Cookie sent up for yous.”

Hermione noticed for the first time the tray of tea and food on her desk and her face paled. “I was asleep Dainty, there’s no need for you to tell-” 

Another pop sounded and a sturdy, round elf wearing an apron and wielding a large wooden spoon appeared next to the desk, a furious expression on her face. “Yous be eating your food Missy Hermy or I’s gonna bonk yous with this spoon.”

“I’m going to leave you to this,” Tonks snickered, leaving Hermione facing two angry house elves.

* * *

Fleur stared up at the manor in front of her skeptically. She had heard about the famed House of Black; there were few in Magical Europe who hadn’t. Ancient, powerful, eccentric, the Blacks were known for being a little unhinged, and Fleur was expecting that Black Manor would match such a reputation. She imagined gargoyles looming threateningly over the entrance, thorns twisting in the yard, even lightning crackling overhead, but the actual manor was… a bit of a letdown. The house was still visually impressive with its scale and traditional gothic architecture, but it was lacking the… the imposing quality she imagined the ancestral home of the House of Black would exude. She wondered if this was in part the work of the new Lady of House Black or if the family was not near as eccentric as the people thought. 

The wards around the manor were thick and Fleur could feel the magic as they washed over her, causing her to shiver. They were powerful, ancient wards, but she could sense newer barriers prod curiously at her, but as she held a missive from the Mistress of the house in her hands, they let her pass through. She knew that wards such as the ones on Black Manor were only as powerful as the one who wielded them, and the strength behind them intrigued her. 

Fleur barely remembered Hermione Granger from the year she attended Hogwarts for the Triwizard tournament, she was far too distracted with preparations for the tournament. Though if she was being honest with herself, she was more distracted by the weather, the heavy food, the darkness of the school than she was by the tournament itself, that was not a good year for Fleur. Hermione Granger was little more than a blur at the edge of her vision, only fifteen years old, noticeable only by the impressive volume of her hair that seemed to crackle with magic as she moved. She walked on edge whenever Fleur saw her, weighted down by the enormous pile of books always in her arms. Fleur never believed the girl was worth her notice other than as Harry Potter’s friend, and resident genius witch, a fact which the Ravenclaws she talked to always complained about. It wasn’t until the Yule ball that she saw the caterpillar for the butterfly she actually was.

After the disaster at the end of the tournament, Fleur retreated back to France and didn’t give much thought about the other witch except for what she read in the newspaper. She read about her blood adoption by Sirius Black and then her elevation to the Lady of House Black after his death. News during the war was sporadic since it was unreliable, and she was busy helping her family keep Voldemort’s influence from spreading to the French magical community. Everyone heard about how the war ended though, and Lady Granger-Black’s role in finally ridding the world of that despot. She wondered what kind of woman that bushy haired brunette she remembered from the tournament grew up to be.

She walked up the drive towards the manor until she reached the steps leading up to the veranda and front door. A smartly dressed house elf popped in front of the door before she could reach it and looked at her with suspicion in her eyes. “Hows Dainty be helping yous?”

“I have an appointment with the Mistress of this house,” Fleur replied, pulling her letter out of her pocket. “I have a letter from her confirming the meeting.”

Dainty glanced at the letter in the woman’s hands and her eyes narrowed. “Missy Hermy meant to be resting,” she grumbled, just barely audible to Fleur’s Veela enhanced hearing. “I wills be escorting you to the library, the Mistress be there working.”

“Merçi.” Fleur nodded her head and dutifully followed behind the elf as the front doors opened. The doors opened to the foyer with beautiful dark gray granite floors, magnificent tapestries on the walls, and black suits of armor strategically positioned around the room. The grand staircase on the other side of the foyer was crafted out of a lighter gray stone with black accents, matching the overall darker feel of the manor. Fleur assumed that the granite coloring was the choice of a Black family ancestor, though the decor was not as overt as she thought it would be, indicating the new mistress’s tastes.

She padded up the stairs softly, the thin carpet smooth under her feet and the stone railing cold against her hand. The walls held more tapestries and surprisingly muggle paintings, ones devoid of movement or irritating people who chattered away about this or that. Instead she found beautiful landscapes from the Americas, paintings of classical subjects from the golden age of European art, and beautiful scrolls and screens from Asia. Fleur was absorbed with an ink painting from China depicting beautiful mountains and scraggly trees partially hidden behind puffy clouds when the house elf cleared her throat with an impatient tone. The Veela turned wide-eyed towards the small creature, she had never heard a house elf with such an impertinent tone.

“The Mistress be at her desk in the library,” Dainty stated with a sniff. “She is meant to be resting, dos not be bothering her with any fiddle-faddle bird lady.” The house elf popped away before Fleur could respond, leaving the blonde standing in the hallway.

“Such an odd elf,” Fleur murmured before turning to the double doors in front of her. She grasped the handles and pushed open the doors, revealing a room filled wall to wall with books. She wound her way around the shelves and chairs dotted around towards the light she could see in the back of the room. She turned around another shelf and finally caught sight of the younger woman hunched over a large desk, her long brunette hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, and magnifying glass in hand as she studied a piece of paper laid out on top of the desk. Several strands of hair had escaped the hair tie and were falling in front of her face trailing along the paper, but the woman paid them no mind.

“Lady Granger-Black?” Fleur started, stepping up to the desk. Hermione’s head popped up, her hair shifting as she moved. She looked at Fleur up and down before leaning over the desk to look at the ground. “Um, Lady Granger-Black, can I help you with something?”

“What? Oh, I’m just trying to determine the height of your stilettos.”

Fleur’s face twisted in confusion, “I assure you I came unarmed, I am only carrying my wand.”

“No, not daggers, I mean heels… and she’s wearing flats, marvelous!” Hermione quickly picked up the piece of paper she was studying, and moved around the desk, handing it to the taller woman. “Here, hold this up, better to study the drawing with it all folded out and my desk isn’t big enough.”

“Lady Granger-Black,” Fleur said again as she took the parchment in hand and dutifully held it up as indicated. “Would this not be easier using magic to suspend the drawing?”

“Absolutely not, cannot use magic around parchment this old and delicate, needs to be handled carefully.” Hermione took her magnifying glass in hand and leaned closer into the drawing to study it. “Fascinating.”

The blonde fought down the urge to fidget as the (beautiful)woman shifted nearer to her, the scent coming off of her like spicy peppers, cinnamon and old books. “Lady Granger-Black,” she tried again when she felt the woman press even closer to her breasts.

Hermione pulled back and blinked up at the other woman. “Oh right,” she said suddenly, pulling the parchment away from the woman. “You owled me didn’t you? About some kind of project you need my assistance with.” She set the parchment and magnifying glass aside and moved back around her desk to look at her calendar. “Fleur Delacour…” Her head popped up, “I knew you looked familiar, I met you in my fourth year didn’t I? During the Triwizard tournament.” The brunette narrowed her eyes and looked Fleur up and down again, “You were shorter then.”

“Veela go through different stages of puberty,” Fleur replied. “I hit my second one after I finished up with that awful tournament.”

“Yes, yes that was an awful year.” They grew quiet for a few moments before Hermione shook out of it, “Your letter mentioned that you needed assistance with something, why my help?”

“The papers have spoken much of your exploits after the war,” the blonde said. “About your adventures, the things you’ve found. We- I need to find something, something lost to time and legend, and you’re the best person to help me find it.”

“I’m going to need a little more information, such as what I’m supposed to be looking for and why,” Hermione clarified.

“Is that necessary?”

“For me yes, I don’t just go looking for everything people owl me about, how am I to know that whatever you want me to find isn’t some dark object or some imprisoned old god that should stay lost.”

Fleur raked her fingers through her hair and growled. She paced in front of the desk before sitting down in one of the plush chairs, her posture tense. “I’m not sure how much awareness you have about Veela politics,” she started slowly. “It is not something we advertise to the general wizarding world, but we do not hide either.”

The brunette waited as the older woman fidgeted for a few more minutes, agitation clearly evident in her movements before smoothing out the wrinkles she was creating in her tunic. “There are different family clans of Veela, some big, some small. In ancient times, the clans would war among each other and humans frequently, trying to establish dominance or gain power. Eventually though, the Veela established a monarchy, one chosen from among us to be the queen and her family would continue the line. Recently though, the current, or I should say former queen of the Veela died due to a sudden illness, leaving no heir or successor to take her place.” Fleur exhaled and clenched her fingers in the cloth around her knees again, “Only one other time in Veela history has a queen died without an heir and it led to a vast and deadly civil war that nearly wiped out the Veela clans altogether.”

“Interesting,” Hermione murmured, jotting down a few notes. She had read a few books about Veela in her fourth year because she was curious about the French champion, but those books were skewed with prejudices and held none of the information Fleur just revealed to her. “So I’m guessing you want to avoid a second civil war?”

The blonde nodded, “The clans are changing, we’re increasing our ties with humans, both magical and mundane, and some of the more conservative clans do not like this. The council of the Veela will pick the next queen, and some are afraid they will pick someone from one of those clans.”

“Ah, I’m guessing you have a way to prevent that and that way involves me somehow?”

Fleur pulled a book out of her bag and opened it up to the proper page. “The dagger of Aurelia, the first queen of the Veela. Supposedly it gave the wielder the power to control the elements, an ability that is sacred to the Veela. Aurelia used the dagger to unite the clans in an era of peace, until centuries later anyway. According to our sacred laws, whoever wields the dagger is the rightful queen of the Veela. If we can find the dagger and return with it before the next New Moon, the council will have to honor our ancient laws.”

Hermione studied the legend and the drawing on the page. “So what happened to the dagger?”

“It was sealed away with Aurelia in her tomb, and that is where you come in.” She carefully took out the rolled up map from her bag and laid it out on the desk. “This map apparently shows the location of the tomb, but it is in code and I cannot decipher what it says.”

“Except for this torture and death to thieves,” Hermione mused. Her eyes flew over the paper, analyzing the code and drawings on the map. “Where did you find this?”

“My grandmother found it in the ruins of the Delacour family ancestral home.”

“Right,” Hermione stood up and rolled up the map. “That’s where we’ll start.” She strode out the room with Fleur hot on her heels. 

“Why are we starting there?”

“Easy.” Hermione opened another door and started grabbing items off the wall, tossing them into a small pack. “The code on the map is written in a cipher, and all iyphers have a key. If your grandmother found the map hidden there, it’s most likely that the key for the cipher is there as well.” She finished packing her bag and turned towards the blonde. “Alright, so where is this ancestral home?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a note, I didn't want to use magic a ton in this story because, well, sometimes it gets sloppy. Have something you need to happen quickly? Magic. Plot point you can't explain well? Magic. It gets to be a crutch and I don't like it, so you won't be seeing it a lot but it'll be referenced. I thought about just making this a no magic AU but that would have taken more time to sort out so I decided to do it this way.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will have to tide over as my recent update for a while as I work on other things.

* * *

“I never expected the proud _French_ Delacour clan to be descended from an Italian family,” Hermione murmured as they walked through the streets of Milan. 

Fleur sniffed, “Well we have been living in France for well over a thousand years, so I would say that we’re not Italian anymore.”

“So what’s the story,” Hermione said. “How did the Delacour Veela clan go from living in Milan Italy to France?”

The blonde shot the shorter woman a quick glance before turning her attention back to the ancient streets around them. “Unlike most of the other Veela clans, my family has always had close ties with humans, at least in business anyway in the magical communities. We dealt primarily with weaving and cloth making, enchanted cloth, magical silk, dragon leather, many different things. We settled in Mediolanum, the city that was here before Milan, after the time of the Roman conquest of the area. We lived here in peace for several centuries until the fall of the Western Roman empire when the area was threatened by the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Eventually the city was completely destroyed during the Gothic Wars, and my family fled to France to rebuild.”

“I have read about the mages employed by the Goths during the wars, the spells needed to destroy a city, especially ones to break through sophisticated wards were probably incredible. I’ve been thinking of trying to find one of their grimoires but, well, probably best that those spells stay lost.” Hermione pulled a small notebook out of her pack and crossed a few things off the page. “So where is your ancestral home located, I doubt it is in the middle of Muggle Milan.”

Non,” Fleur chuckled. “The old magical part of Mediolanum was just outside of the city, and our estate was in the forest separate from the district. It was called the Hidden Court, and so when my family moved, we changed out name-”

“ _Delacour,_ of the Court, makes sense,” Hermione nodded. “Most likely to fit in but also to remember where you came from.”

“Exactement,” Fleur replied. “The original magical district was never rebuilt when Milan was built on the old city, the magicals that stayed went with a different location, one that was more centrally located.”

They started making their way west, winding through streets of apartment buildings and local market places. As they walked, Hermione kept glancing around, observing people clustered at tables outside of cafes, bicycles coasting by and the small cars navigating the narrow streets. Without warning, she tugged Fleur down a narrow street and pulled her into a small shop catering to tourists in the area. She quickly grabbed a few books and pushed Fleur further into the store to look at the small statues of the Milan cathedral.

“What are you-” Fleur started, but the younger woman just hushed her.

“Look at the statues and be quiet, try not to look… well, like you,” Hermione ordered, holding one of the books in front of her face. 

Fleur held back the retort that was on the tip of her tongue, and just let out a huff and started perusing the tacky figurines. The Milan cathedral was one of the most visibly recognizable buildings in Italy and it deserved better than these cheap plastic replicas. Out of the corner of her eye, the blonde saw Hermione watching the street, and she shifted her weight on her feet slightly when two men passed in front of the shop, both looking around searchingly. A few more minutes passed and the men came back, muttering angrily to each other in German, and gesturing viciously with their hands. They soon left the area after noticing they were attracting a lot of attention, and Hermione let out a sigh when they were out of sight.

“Who were they?” Fleur asked, leaning against the shelf next to the younger woman.

“I don’t know,” the brunette answered. “I spotted them when we first arrived in Milan at the portkey point just off the Piazza del Duomo, but I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed them following us as we wandered around.” She turned a questioning eye on the blonde, “Did anyone know about the map your grandmother found or what you were planning to do?”

“Non,” Fleur replied, shaking her head. “At least I don’t think so, my grandmaman never told anyone what she found until she showed the map to my grandmère and myself. I told my parents that I was going to be leaving for a little while to work on something, but they are used to me being gone a lot for my job as a Hit Witch.” A pensive look crossed her face, “I didn’t check to make sure we were alone when I told them I was working on something that could help the clans, it is possible that someone overheard us, but it would have only been other members of the Delacour clan.”

“It could be a coincidence,” Hermione muttered, her mind quickly scanning through the different scenarios. “It could be someone keeping an eye on my movements, hoping to profit off of whatever I find or…”

“Or someone is following me,” Fleur continued. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyes and sighed, “My Tante Natalie… My Tante Jeanne mentioned at the meeting that her lover saw Daphne Dubois, my Tante Natalie’s Grand-Tante meeting with members of the Lavigne clan. She said she didn’t know anything about it, but other members of the Dubois family might, and some of them could have been in our home when I told my parents I was leaving.” She opened her eyes, “I should have thought of that, I should know to check a space before speaking about sensitive information.”

“It is difficult to remember when you’re in your own house though,” Hermione countered. “It is a place you feel safe.”

“How could they have found out about the map though, or what we were planning? My Grandmaman didn’t tell anyone what she found, not even us until yesterday.”

Hermione pulled Fleur out of the shop and down another street to a small cafe and bookshop that was tucked away from the main thoroughfare of tourists. “You’re a Hit Witch for the French government, correct?” The brunette asked, sipping at the espresso she ordered. “You’re used to dealing with situations where the stakes are high, but this isn’t a dark wizard you’re chasing after, this is something personal.” She downed the rest of her drink before turning her attention to the cafe au lait she ordered with the espresso. “I don’t know if anyone knows about the map your grandmother found. Experience has taught me that if there’s a secret, someone always knows about it, so we should proceed with the assumption that someone knows and is also trying to find what we’re looking for.”

Fleur snorted and shook her head. “I was complacent, I thought this would be an easy matter: get the key you need to translate the map, find the tomb, retrieve the dagger. I was treating it like one of my missions to capture or eradicate problematic magicals, dangerous but straightforward, but this… this isn’t so simple is it?”

“Nothing I deal with is ever that simple.” Hermione set down her drink and a thoughtful look crossed her face, “Of course we could look at this from a different perspective in that they weren’t following you at all, and they were in fact following me.”

“Is that something you run into often?”

“When I’m working on something by myself? More often than I’d care to admit, there are always greedy treasure hunters wanting to steal or loot anything I might find, especially magical artifacts.” Hermione took a notebook out of her bag and jotted down a few notes, writing down everything she could remember about the men following them. “The best thing we can do is to move as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, and that usually means a limited use of magic.”

The blonde nodded, “Yes, that is standard practice with Hit Witches and Wizards as well, magic is too easily traced, and we’re only to use it when necessary.” She let out another sigh, “I guess that means we keep walking.”

Hermione glanced across the street and her brow furrowed, “Maybe not, come with me.”

Fleur followed the younger woman’s line of sight. “Oh non.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you got me on this contraption,” Fleur muttered, shakily climbing off of the back of the rented scooter. 

“It was faster than walking all the way out here,” Hermione retorted, dropping the kickstand for the scooter. 

“I think I would have rather walked,” Fleur muttered. “I don’t know how muggles manage dealing with the stress of all of those… those… death traps on the road.”

“For many it’s the most convenient way to get around.” The brunette glanced around at the wooded area on the outskirts of the city. “So this is the ancestral home of the Delacour clan, it’s a bit more… woody than I imagined.”

“Veela prefer forests and the countryside, it helps us to remain connected to nature, even though we had to be close to a city in order to make a living.” Fleur pulled out her wand and waved it around. “The wards here are old but still viable, they are mostly for keeping people away, but I think I can work around the wards with my Veela magic. They should recognize me as family, but...”

“But sometimes wards this old evolve over time,” Hermione muttered, backing away from the ruins in front of her. “So I’m just going to stay back here.”

Fleur rolled her eyes, and muttered a few words as she continued to wave her wand in calculated movements. A few sparks shot out of the end, and her brow furrowed as she looked at the crumbling building in front of her. “There’s illusionary wards here,” she muttered. She took Hermione’s hand and carefully stepped over the ward line.

The two women watched as the ruins hidden among the trees slowly stitched themselves back together to reveal an old Roman style villa rather than the wreckage it was a few moments ago. The building was still uninhabitable due to several downed walls and overgrown plants pulling and tugging at what was left of the old villa, but it was more solid than Hermione had originally assumed. She could see the atrium through part of the broken walls, and the beautiful murals that decorated the interior spaces where the main family lived. “This is probably one of the largest remaining villas I’ve seen,” Hermione murmured, stepping over the crumbling threshold into the structure. “Most of them fell out of favor by the 700s and were replaced with more Medieval style buildings.”

“My family had been out of the area for well over 100 years by that point,” Fleur replied. “Though our wards remained strong all of this time.”

Hermione let her eyes trace over the stylistic developments in the architecture of the villa. “This was originally built during the Roman Republic, and expanded as the clan grew, you can see where the building was expanded through the centuries.” She looked out one of the windows and saw several other structures on the grounds, “Even the servant housing was expanded over time.”

Fleur nodded and stepped through the crumbling walls to inspect the layout of the grounds. “It looks like there were different houses for members of the main branch of the family, while the extended family most likely would have been occupying estates nearby.”

“I see the remnants of some vineyards as well, looks like the Delacour clan was into more than just weaving.” Hermione hummed, giving one last look at the grounds before turning her attention back to the ruins. “Do you know where your grandmother found the map?” She asked, studying one of the murals in the hallway. The image was crumbling with parts of the plaster gone after years of decay and damage, but she could tell that it originally held scenes from the history of Veela.

“No, she didn’t offer the information and I didn’t think to ask her,” Fleur admitted. “My Grandmaman has a Mastery in the History of Magic, and a Muggle archaeology degree, she can go on and on about a piece of pottery, so we all have just learned over the years not to ask certain questions about the things she finds.”

“She sounds like an interesting woman,” Hermione murmured. “It would be nice to know where she found the map to save time, but we can probably figure it out.” She continued to walk through the walls, stepping around piles of debris, wiping away cobwebs as she went. “We can rule out the servant houses and quarters, and the public spaces, it would be too easy for the map to fall into the wrong hands. We should probably focus on the family living spaces which would be in the larger section of the villa.” She stepped out into the atrium through one of the holes in the wall and quickly made her way to the back part of the villa on the left side of the structure. 

Once they stepped through another hole in the wall, they were met with the sight of large columns still standing, supporting the roof, and magnificent fresco murals decorating the walls covered with dirt and grime. These murals were more personal and intimate than the paintings in the public spaces, covering the history of the proud Veela clan that once lived within the walls of the villa. “The code on the map,” Hermione started explaining as she methodically explored the rooms. “Is a cipher, what kind of cipher I don’t know, but in order to break the code, we need to find the key for the cipher.”

“What kind of ‘key’ are we looking for?”

“That’s what I’m not sure about, if the map was using an Ottendorf cipher, I would look for a book, but the map is older than traditional books, so therefore older than the creation of the Ottendorf cipher.”

“What I don’t understand,” Fleur started, interrupting Hermione’s train of thought. “Why did the clan not take the map with them when they fled the villa?”

Hermione hummed as she thought about the question, it was always one of the most important ones, why? Why do people behave the way they do? Answer that question and you can solve any mystery. “There are two dominant possibilities, and both are equally likely,” she replied. “They either didn’t know the map was there, it could have been hidden long before and was forgotten, or they didn’t want to risk it being found if they were caught fleeing. The map was safe behind ancient wards, it wasn’t going anywhere.”

“You must come across this issue a lot.”

“More than you think,” the brunette answered. “People have been migrating all over the world for thousands of years for various reasons. They leave things behind or hide them, and it is left for people like me to find them.” She carefully picked up an old amphora and peered inside. “No, too fragile, it would be kept somewhere sturdy, somewhere that wouldn’t change over time…” Realization dawned on her, and her magic flared slightly in excitement. “Of course, the wards, they were still active, there must be a ward stone here. The map must’ve been in the room where the ward stone was kept, it’s where the wards would be the strongest and the only place that would be assured to withstand assault or the test of time.” She turned to her blonde companion, “Do you have an idea on where your family might have placed the ward stone?”

“Family tradition would have the ward stone at the heart of the house, but that is different for each house,” Fleur admitted. “Some members of the clan have their stones in the kitchens or in the library, it is hard to tell.”

“The heart of the house, the heart of the house…” Hermione repeated the phrase to herself as she stared at the frescoes on the walls. She noticed a particular pattern in the fragmented painting, and she moved closer to analyze the design. “Of course,” she breathed. “The heart of the house.”

She turned around and started making her way through the buildings until she came across the large great room where the family would have entertained guests, taken their meals and spent time together. There was a large hearth built into the center wall, and Hermione quickly moved towards it, brushing away dirt and grime that had built up over the years. “The frescoes had a picture of Vesta, the Etruscan and Roman goddess of the hearth, family, and home. She was most likely the chosen patron goddess of your family. In order to gain approval and protection of the goddess, they would have placed the ward stone here in the hearth, the heart of the home.” Hermione felt around with her fingers and her magic until she felt a small area that seemed to push against her. “There it is,” she murmured, waving her wand. 

The hidden place instantly revealed itself with a little magical prodding, and the two found themselves staring at the ward stone of the Delacour ancestral home. It was a pitch black volcanic rock carved with different runes detailing the wards protecting the structure. “So the ward stone was in the hearth,” Fleur breathed, kneeling down to get a better look at it. “But where was the map kept?”

“Right there,” Hermione answered, pointing to a space just behind the ward stone. “It is just big enough for the map. The real question is though, if that is where the map was, where is the key?” She started poking around the hearth, looking for any other hidden places, loose bricks, anything that could conceal another space.

“What kind of ‘key’ are you looking for?”

“I’ll know it when I- aha!” A small compartment opened in the stone after she taped a few of them, revealing a narrow cylinder with a piece of parchment wrapped around it.

“What is that?” Fleur asked as Hermione carefully removed the tool from its hiding place.

“A scytale,” she replied, studying the markings on the parchment. “This was a tool used by the ancient Greeks. The parchment contains letters and when you wrap them around this rod, the code reveals itself. If this was kept near the map, then it can also be used to break that cipher as well.” She sipped the rod in her bag and stood up, “I’m going to head back to the manor to work on deciphering the code, I can send you an owl when I’m done.”

“Oh non,” Fleur replied. “Where that map goes, I go.”

Hermione let out an aggravated sigh that she was going to be stuck with the other woman until the end of this particular project. “Fine, fine.”

* * *

Fleur shut her book, _Le Comte de Monte-Cristo,_ and extracted herself from the overstuffed armchair Hermione had waved her towards when they had returned from the Delacour ancestral home. Her mind was too wound up to concentrate on the lengthy dialogue in the Dumas classic, really nothing in the library seemed to be able to hold her attention longer than a few minutes. She glanced back over towards where the brunette was hunched over her desk, long strands of hair escaping her hair tie again. She took in the expression on the other woman’s face, the furrowed brow, the intense look of concentration, and the small glimpse of tongue peeking through pink lips...

She shook herself out of her thoughts, she didn’t have time for such things, not with the fate of the Veela clans resting on her and whether or not she could find the dagger of Queen Aurelia. Fleur started picking up random books around the room, trying to find anything to occupy her hands to keep her from ripping the map out of the brunette’s hands and trying to figure it out on her own. “Have you finished translating yet?” She asked, setting down another book.

“I’m translating from classical Greek, it’s a little more difficult than translating from Latin or one of the modern languages,” Hermione replied. “Truthfully I’m not even sure I’m translating this correctly, there’s a few words here that could mean a few different things that would change the meaning of the riddle.”

“What about the rest of the map?” Fleur questioned. “There are other things than the symbols, pictures, would they help with the translating?”

“I’m starting to realize that this is less of a map and more of a guide. Maps are a bit more precise than this,” the brunette muttered. “Though this isn’t the worse thing I’ve worked with.” She circled a few words she had scribbled down on a piece of paper, “You see this word, _Κλειδία,_ it means key, this tells me that we’ll need to find some kind of key before we can go looking for the tomb.”

Fleur let out an exasperated sigh, “We do not have time for this, the council is set to decide on a new queen in less than a fortnight.”

“I am translating as quickly as I can,” Hermione retorted. “It is not only that this is written in code, but what I’m translating it into is a riddle. It’s not like whoever made the map just wrote ‘the dagger is here’ after going through all the trouble of hiding it in code.”

"Please Lady Granger-Black," Fleur started, desperation glinting in her eyes. "You have to try, we have to find the dagger before the council elects a new queen and we're too late."

“Why do you have to find the dagger before they pick a new queen?” The brunette asked, her brow raised. “I thought whoever holds the dagger is the true queen of the Veela?”

“It can only be used when there isn’t already a queen,” the blonde explained. “When the Council selects a new queen, she is queen for the rest of her life unless she abdicates, but then it would go to her heir. Only if she died or abdicated with no heir would they acknowledge the holder of the dagger.” She shook her head, “If someone from the Lavigne clan is selected… It would be the end of the Veela clans as I know them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sparked civil war between the clans by trying to restart the war against humans.”

“But what is the rush with picking a new queen?”

“Veela tradition dictates that when one queen passes, the next must be chosen before the next New Moon.”

“And the Full Moon was a few days ago…” Hermione studied the older woman for a moment before re-focusing on the map in front of her. She started jotting down words that she had already decoded, and filling in with the pattern she had noticed emerging as she was working on the cipher. “I have the first part of the cipher figured out, so that will have to do for now. It seems as if the code was written as part of a riddle, with each line revealing more clues that could lead to the tomb .” She wrote down the top part of the cypher on the map, making sure not to cover up anything significant. “‘Σκοπε τα κλαιδια εν τηι γηι των βασιλέων εν `ηι `ο `ηλιος άνωθεν βασιλεύει `ίνα την βασίλειαν έν τωι φλογμωι αιδιωι θαπταν εύρισκηις,’ and something else… I can’t quite make it out.”

“Well you said this one means ‘key,’” Fleur stated, pointing to the indicated word. “What does the rest of it mean?”

“‘ _Βασίλης’_ means ‘King’ and this word means sun… ‘Search for the key in the land of the kings where the sun reigns on high in order to find the queen buried in the eternal flame,’ and... something about a heart, the heart of the sun maybe?” 

“Why does it have to be a riddle?” Fleur growled out, “I’m so sick of riddles after that stupid one during the Tri-Wizard tournament.”

The brunette ignored the grumbled outburst and focused on the drawing around the cypher, the tiny details, clues disguised as random scribbles and lines. “This design,” Hermione murmured, casting a magnifying spell on her eyes. “At first glance it looks like simple triangles but I think they’re pyramids.” She hummed, “The heart of the sun, Amun-Ra, the supreme deity of the Egyptians, possibly represented by this symbol here.” She tapped another part of the map where a circular design was sketched in with the triangles. She wondered at the cross marks over the circle but decided to disregard it to deal with what she knew. 

“Amun-Ra was considered the creator deity to the Egyptians and the King of the Gods, and patron god of the city of Waset, later known as Thebes.” Hermione turned her gaze from the map to the blonde standing on the other side of her desk, “The key we need to find is probably in the ruins of Thebes.” She jumped up from her chair and started grabbing a few books off of her shelf. “Grab your bag Fleur, we’re heading to Luxor.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depending on what happens when I finish this story, I have notes for a second one started.


	4. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter ready to go, but I felt I needed to update some of my other WIP before posting this one. Just as a note, I have never been to Egypt, but I did a lot of studying on google maps and using general knowledge I already had from years of studying Egyptian art.

* * *

“I thought we were coming to Luxor to explore the ancient sites, not a museum,” Fleur grumbled as she followed Hermione while the brunette examined the different artifacts in the display case in front of her. 

“You want to try to poke around the Temple of Karnak or Temple of Luxor in the middle of the day surrounded by hundreds of tourists?” Hermione turned her attention from the statue of Amenhotep III to look at the older woman.

Fleur left out an impatient huff and scuffed her shoe on the ground, “I just don’t know why we’re here rather than doing something more productive.”

“We are doing something productive,” Hermione countered. “We’re doing research.” At the disbelieving look on Fleur’s face, the brunette sighed, “Look, I managed to decode more of the map on the plane here, so I have an idea of what we’re looking for, but I don’t know why. Why did the map lead to Egypt? What was the connection between this ancient Veela queen and ancient Egypt? The Cairo museum might be better to answer these questions, though the Luxor museum is one of the best in the world, and definitely has some of the best artifacts from this area.” She moved away from the display to the next room, taking in the statues and exhibits as best as she could. “Don’t you want to learn more about your history?”

The blonde sighed at the question, feeling boxed in by the loaded words. “Of course I do,” she grumbled. “But I would also prefer to be doing something productive since we’re running out of time to find the dagger.”

Hermione sighed, “I know, but there’s not a lot we can do right now. I know what I do seems pretty exciting, but there’s a lot of downtime just waiting for certain events to line up perfectly.” At Fleur’s petulant look, the brunette sighed and checked her watch. “Look, the Temple of Karnak closed a few hours ago except for their light and sound show, which should wrap up soon. The temple will be completely deserted at that point, which is when we want to be there. We cannot poke around in such a public sight during the day, especially if we’re going to be looking for something that could potentially be concealed with magic. Let’s just keep looking at the exhibits, then we’ll find something to eat and check out the temple afterwards.” She consulted the map of the museum, scanning the different exhibitions. “There’s a few more statues that will be interesting to look at, the special exhibition and… I want to see the mummy Ramesses I before we leave.” She turned in the direction indicated by the map and started making her way through the exhibits.

“What is so important about this Ramesses?” Fleur muttered, following behind the younger woman. 

“Ramesses I was the founder of the 19th dynasty, one of the most important dynasties in ancient Egypt, if only because his grandson was considered the great builder of Egypt,” Hermione replied. “And truthfully, despite the grand tombs built to keep them safe in their journey to the afterlife, there aren’t that many mummies of ancient pharaohs because of grave robbing. And for once I would love to see a mummy that wasn’t chasing me.”

“What?”

The brunette didn’t answer her and just kept walking through the different exhibits. “Do try to keep up.”

Fleur resisted the urge to roll her eyes and kept pace with the younger woman just slightly ahead of her. Her eyes strayed around the different statues, paintings and other artifacts, all thousands of years old. Seeing such treasures around her made her heart clench, the Veela did not have such artifacts, none that they could find anyway. The Veela history was one of strife and war, the different clans often butting heads with each other either due to difference of opinions or vying for territory. Most of their cultural objects were destroyed during the great civil war centuries ago, many of which were considered irreplaceable. It was another reason why she was searching for Aurelia’s tomb, the history it would hold, valuable cultural treasures from the beginnings of the age of Veela. She shook her head at the idle thoughts, she was beginning to sound like her grandmaman.

“What other items are here?” Fleur asked, speeding up to walk next to the brunette.

“Well, there’s another pharaoh here, Ahmose I, he was responsible for reconquering lost territory, such as Nubia, and one of the last native Egyptian pharaohs to build a pyramid, though it wasn’t used as a tomb like many of his predecessors.” Hermione consulted the exhibition list again, “They have some artifacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb, he is one of the most famous pharaohs because his tomb was found completely intact.”

“Oui, my grandmaman would often force my older sister and I to watch documentaries with her about Tutankamun and other historical subjects.” Fleur rolled her eyes, “She had a muggle television installed in one of the small garden cottages and we would spend a lot of time there in the summers when mes grands-parents watched us while our mothers were working.”

“If I remember correctly, you have a younger sister as well,” Hermione murmured, turning a curious eye back on the blonde.

“Oui, Gabby, she is much younger than my sister and I, she was, how you say… an ‘oopsie-baby.’ Ma tante Jeanne was the same, seems to be a family trait.”

Hermione smirked, “Looks like it. What does she, Gabby, think about all of this?”

“She is at Beauxbatons, she knows the queen has died because she was pulled out of school for the mourning period, though she does not know that I am here searching for-” She cut herself off, remembering that anyone could be listening to their conversation, a lesson she would not forget again. “Well, that I am here.” Fleur let out a sigh, “I am doing this for her as much as the rest of the- well, the rest of us.”

The brunette stopped and tugged Fleur over towards a corner out of the way of the exhibits and other visitors looking at the displays. “Look, Fleur, I can’t promise you that we’ll find the tomb in time, there are a lot of things to consider. I can’t even promise that the dagger will actually be in the tomb or that the map you have leads to the tomb at all. What I can promise is that I will get to the destination of where the map points, if that is at a tomb or some other ancient site important to the- to your kind.”

Fleur squeezed Hermione’s hand, grateful for her words. “I know, truthfully, that is all I can ask.”

* * *

“I almost wish I had more time to appreciate how beautiful this city is,” Fleur sighed and she watched the lights from the bank glinting against the dark waters of the Nile. 

“Never had time for much sightseeing?”

The blonde shook her head, “Non, I’ve been busy since I finished school, with the war and Hit Witch training, learning more about Defense Against the Dark Arts, I haven’t really had time for much of a vacation. When I get time off, I’m often called in to assist my family or the clan in general. It can be exhausting at times."

Hermione snorted, "I can sort of understand that, after the war was over, I kept getting pulled into different directions, different things that people wanted from me. I finally had to sit down and figure out what I wanted for myself or I would have burned out years ago."

"You wanted to be hunting down ancient tombs?"

"I wanted to see the world," the brunette corrected. "I wanted to solve mysteries, and there are so many mysteries in the world, some that may never be solved but I would still like to try. Besides, I found during the war running around looking for Horcruxes and hiding from Death Eaters, I enjoy being active. Using the energy of my body while working with magic, it makes my spells more powerful and my thoughts clearer."

"I don't know how," Fleur muttered. "I haven't been able to think clearly since I saw you." It took less than a second for the blonde to realize what she said and a horrified look to cross her face. She could feel her entire body turn red from embarrassment, and she beseeched Vesta to strike her down where she stood. Fleur figured if her ancestors held her up as the patron goddess of the Delacour clan, it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Lightning didn't descend from the heavens, though an amused chuckle reached her ears just as the ferry pulled up to the dock on the western side of the Nile. “Come on, let’s go find something to eat before the blood rushes entirely to your face,” Hermione said, pulling Fleur off of the ferry. “I saw that there’s a good restaurant near here with an excellent view of the river at night.”

They headed south along the bank of the Nile, passing by boats docked on the shore, hotels and businesses relying on tourist foot traffic, until finally Hermione turned a corner and a sign was hanging over an alley with a simple wooden staircase at the end. “Nile View Restaurant, it was mentioned in the guidebook that I grabbed before we left the hotel. It’s often recommended to English speaking tourists since it is open late and the owner speaks English.” 

They took the stairs to the top floor of the building and found a space with cloth covered tables and lights hanging from the ceiling. A few people were seated at a couple tables, but fortunately one of the tables next to the railing was open, giving them a perfect view of the river and the faint lights from the Luxor Temple. The owner walked up to their table and immediately started chattering to them in English, and explained the menu to them. They ordered and large plates of food were brought to them within twenty minutes, allowing them to eat and enjoy the view.

“You never did tell me why we’re checking out the Temple of Karnak before the Luxor Temple,” Fleur said, glancing over to the temple on the opposite bank. “Are they not both good candidates to be what we’re looking for?”

“They are,” Hermione agreed after taking a bite of her chicken kabob. “Did you know that the two complexes were originally connected? There’s a procession of sphinxes outside of both temples, and originally it spread the distance between the two.” She took a sip of her juice before continuing. “I don’t know if the Temple of Karnak has what we’re looking for, but I do know that it is a large complex, and an old one. If there’s something to find, it is most likely there or we’ll be able to find a clue on where to look.”

“You know many things don't you," Fleur murmured. "It is an admirable quality, to seek that which is unknown, to learn for the sake of learning."

"It's not always about the pure search for knowledge," the brunette admitted. "Some of it is just practical. Most of the things I run across are harmless, but every now and then I encounter something that could kill me, having the knowledge to deal with it or even avoid it keeps me alive."

Fleur hummed at the notion. The woman across from her was a warrior, a scholar yes, but also a warrior, one who has seen more than her fair share of horrors, beasts and curses from the past and has grown stronger because of it. Many of her colleagues would scoff at the idea that the woman had faced more than they have fighting dark witches and wizards. Humans, especially humans that used dark magic, were predictable though in ways that ancient curses and creatures were not. Sometimes time made curses stronger, sometimes weaker, and sometimes it changed the makeup of the original curse altogether. She knew she made the right choice entrusting the younger woman to help her find something so valuable to her people.

“It’s almost 11,” Hermione stated, looking at her watch. “We should finish up and get back to the ferry, it quits running sometime after midnight.” They quickly finished the rest of their meal, paid the owner and descended back down to street level.

It was a quick walk back to the ferry a few blocks away, and Fleur’s eyes constantly darted around, her Hit Witch instincts fully awakened after that moment in Milan. “I don’t want to alarm you,” she murmured after they had boarded the ferry. “But we’re being followed.”

“I know,” Hermione murmured. “We picked them up as soon as we left the museum, though I wasn’t sure they were following us until I saw them again after leaving the restaurant.”

“My first instinct is to use magic to get rid of them,” Fleur mused. “But the reason we got on that… that ridiculous contraption to get here was to avoid using magic that could be traced, so I’m a bit at a loss on what to do…”

Hermione hummed as she thought, "There's nothing we can do until we get off the ferry." She mulled over the problem for another few moments, "Can you lure them south, the opposite direction of the Temple of Karnak? I have an idea, but I need to get something so you need to distract them and lure them away."

"How are you going to get away without them noticing?"

"There are enough people on this ferry I can disappear in the crowd if needed, but you will need to hold their attention."

Fleur snorted, “Moi? Hold the attention of men? Easy.” She glanced at the three men out of the corner of her eye. “It looks like one of them is the same one that was following us in Milan, the other two are different.”

“So that tells us at least four people are involved,” Hermione replied. “Most likely five since most of these guys scream goon rather than mastermind.” 

The ferry soon pulled into the dock on the eastern side of the Nile, and Hermione quickly elbowed Fleur in the side before disappearing into the crowd of other tourists disembarking the vessel. It was not hard to turn the men’s attention towards her with just a touch of thrall, and lure them the way Hermione indicated. She subtly scoffed at the weak minds of the three trying to discreetly follow her, but picked up the pace because weak minds are often accompanied by stronger bodies prone to fits of rage. She darted away quickly, her feet carrying her down the road towards the Luxor temple. Fleur could hear the pounding of feet behind her, and just as she turned into a bundle of trees to try to hide, she heard a horn blast from the road and an old land rover with its windows rolled down screeched to a stop on the street. 

“Get in!” Hermione yelled, leaning over from the driver’s side of the vehicle.

Fleur didn’t bother to question the other woman about where she got the car, she just hopped in and Hermione peeled away from the kerb, quickly putting distance between them and the men who had been following them. When Hermione was sure they weren’t being pursued any longer, she quickly turned off onto a side street and started to make her way north. “That was close,” the brunette muttered, easing her way through narrow streets.

“‘That was close’ is an understatement,” Fleur heaved, dropping back into her seat. “Where in the world did you get this… contraption?”

“I arranged for it earlier when we checked in though it wasn’t available when we arrived,” Hermione explained. “The concierge at the hotel said that they would be happy to deliver it and leave it at the museum though since that’s where we were going, so I went looking for it.” She continued to weave her way through side streets in order to confuse anyone who might be attempting to follow them. “We should probably assume that the men who were following us also probably have broken into our hotel room attempting to figure out why we’re here, looking for clues or… or something else.”

“The map,” Fleur finished. “But you have it with you.”

“Of course, though they probably found some of my notes about other riddles and potential meanings, I have been working on the cipher every chance I have and I scribble ideas everywhere,” Hermione sighed. “I haven’t fully cracked anything, but I don’t know who is working with them, they could end up ahead of us if we’re not careful.”

“Beauty and brains all rolled into one, magnifique,” Fleur murmured to herself and her Veela hummed in delight. She had always been attracted to beautiful women with equally attractive intelligence, it was a shame that this particular woman was also extremely irritating.

“What was that?” Hermione asked and the blonde froze, not realizing she had spoken out loud. The brunette pulled the land rover over into a parking lot and turned the vehicle off. The alley surrounding them was a typical street filled with stalls that would normally be active with commerce during the day and niches where animals slept with only slight rustling sounds indicating they were disturbed by the arrival of the women. “The temple complex is on the other side of that wall around the corner,” Hermione stated, stepping out of the car.

“What are we looking for exactly?”

Hermione reached into her bag and pulled out the map, consulting the drawings and text she had translated. “Some parts of the map are too faded to really tell,” she sighed. “I can’t decipher much from them except maybe a column?” She folded the map and returned it to her bag. “There are a lot of columns in the hypostyle hall, just past the goat-headed sphinxes,” she shuddered involuntarily at the thought of the sculptures, remembering her last encounter with a stone animal. “Though we will have to be careful to look out for security or any kind of traps. Just because people can’t see us, doesn’t mean the temple can’t see us.”

“You don’t think any curses still exist do you?”

"Egypt had one of the longest lasting empires in this part of the world for a reason," Hermione whispered. "The sorcerers and mages they employed were highly skilled, enough to leave curses on tombs that have lasted thousands of years and require teams of curse breakers to deal with them. Always good to err on the side of caution."

She took a torch out of her bag, and carefully led the way into the temple complex, sneaking around the guards and other security employed to protect the integrity of the site. The two walked past rows upon rows of goat-headed sphinxes, each one staring with cold judgement as they passed. “They’re so… creepy non?” Fleur whispered. “They are staring at us.”

“They’re representative of the god Amun, the god of the sun and the creator of the universe,” Hermione replied. “They’re protective statues of his temple, so in a way, they’re meant to judge us.”

Eventually they made it past the sphinxes and into the complex itself. A few times during the year, the organizers would offer a night light show for tourists to tour the complex at night with spectacular spotlights shining on the different statues and key parts of the temple. Now though, everything was dark with only the light from the moon and their wands to cast an eerie glow on the large granite sculptures. 

“Where to now?” Fleur asked, looking around. Even though they were so close to the city, everything was quiet in the temple, almost as if everything knew it was a sacred space. 

“The complex is the largest temple in the world but I think we can rule a few areas out,” Hermione muttered. She had picked up a map of the temple of Karnak earlier and committed everything to memory so she carefully looked around, scrutinizing her surroundings in the dark. “To the right of us is the Temple of Ramses III, if we keep heading forward we’ll get to the Hypostyle hall with the Obelisk of Thutmoses I right behind it. We can probably limit our search to there since the map had a column like… thing on it and those are the only columns remaining in the complex.”

“I remember reading a book about Egypt in my historie de la Magie class,” Fleur murmured as they crept into the Hypostyle hall. “They had a way of imprinting magic into the hieroglyphics and images they carved in their burial chambers.”

“Protection magic,” the brunette replied. “My experience with such magic when working with Gringotts told me that they would usually use it when wanting to imprison a soul within a tomb, or to offer protection for high ranking members of the political structure.” She pointed her wand up to the columns and through the shadows she saw the sunken reliefs carved into the stone.

“What are we looking for here?”

Hermione turned towards the blonde and then looked back up at the columns. “I’m not sure, but something that could pass as ‘the heart of the sun.’” She gestured towards the right, “You go that way, I’ll go this way, make sure to watch out for security or anything suspicious.” The blonde nodded and they split up through the columns, using their wands to illuminate the darkened space. Hermione carefully studied each glyph she came to, searching for anything that could reference the heart of the sun. As she continued to look through the columns, something started to niggle in the back of her mind. The thought grew stronger the more columns she looked at, and she finally stopped and pulled the map out of her bag. “Something’s not right,” she murmured to herself, looking at the map. “Something doesn’t make sense…”

She studied the map furiously and went through what she had translated, “‘Search for the key in the land of the kings where the sun reigns on high,’” she repeated. “Where the sun reigns on high… Oh no…” Realization colored her tone, “We’re in the wrong place.”

“I think I found something,” Fleur called. “A pressure spell, like a trigger, I’m going to press it.”

“Fleur don’t!”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigh, Fleur? What did you do...

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, Fleur's family tree that I have so far so you know who is who without getting confused.
> 
> Esmé, matriarch of the Veela clan, married to Catherine (historian, all around nerd)  
> They had 3 daughters, Apolline, Estelle, and Jeanne (the oopsie baby)
> 
> Apolline is married to Sophie  
> Estelle is married to Natalie  
> Jeanne is dating Jack (Jacqueline) 
> 
> Apolline and Sophie had three daughters  
> Victoire (the eldest), Fleur (middle child), and Gabrielle
> 
> To Fleur, Esmé is Grandmère and Catherine is Grandmaman
> 
> I've also made some adjustments to the canon timeline and events of the war, but the important bits are mostly mentioned in the first chapter rather than this one so we'll get to them later.


End file.
